Seth Mitchell has been billed as the next great American heavyweight, and he’ll have a chance to earn the praise in an April 28 bout against Chazz Witherspoon in Atlantic City.
“I’m tired of training,” Mitchell said at his open workout. “Mentally and physically I’m ready to go. I’m ready to get the fight on.”
Mitchell, a former standout at linebacker for Gwynn Park High School in Brandywine, Md., played four years of college football at Michigan State. After graduating and seeing his NFL dreams float away, he watched former Baltimore Ravens and current Indianapolis Colts safety Tom Zbikowski boxing on television, and a new plan formed.
“I started boxing five months before my 25th birthday,” Mitchell said. “I never thought about boxing. I can honestly say that if I didn’t see Tom Zbikowski…you wouldn’t be standing here interviewing me now.”
Mitchell said he has his focused locked in on Witherspoon, a cagy veteran who will come at him with everything.
“Chazz is a good fighter. He’s going to come to fight,” Mitchell said. “I know that he’s training extremely hard because he’s been at this level two times before, but came up short. I know he doesn’t want the short end of the stick this time so it’s just motivating me to train even harder.”
Now, Mitchell has everybody after him including the Klitschko brothers, the two men who hold the major championship belts. They’re already asking to fight him, but his team wants him to get more rounds in before taking that kind of jump up in competition.
“I have a great manager in advisor Al Heyman with Golden Boy and I believe they’re moving me extremely well with the right fights at the right time,” Mitchell said. “Everything is contingent on me taking care of business out there and as I said before; I plan to do that.”
Mitchell’s team is looking to book a title shot in early 2013 if everything goes to plan. They hope that the fight takes place in the United States, instead of Europe.
The Mitchell-Witherspoon fight is on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins-Chad Dawson fight and can be seen live on HBO.
